Hello Julie and friends, Thanks for reaching out: your P-patch program is very intriguing indeed! And I appreciate the inquiry: given today's economy, the time to not reinvent the wheel is clearly at an all-time high.
ToolBank USA is working to establish ToolBanks across the country in cities where we are invited to enter. We have spent the past few years codifying the program, building infrastructure, securing capital support, and building a real-time cloud-based tool tracking platform (to replace the rickety Excel-like system we used for years at the Atlanta ToolBank!). Happily, we were also able to register the word 'ToolBank' as intellectual property, and are working to extend it as a brand representing nonprofit excellence and superior customer service across the country. We are pleased to count Home Depot, UPS, and Stanley Black & Decker among our top investors, and have established ToolBanks in Charlotte, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and are actively looking for new cities in which to invest and collaborate. We have discovered that one of the ToolBank's greatest assets is its independence from other programming, thereby relieving it from the burden of the host organization's agenda (real or perceived). All borrowers, big and small, have equal access to the resources of the ToolBank. Its tools are not limited to gardening, construction, or painting: they are limited only by the borrowing organization's capacity to think BIG about what happens when tools are no longer an obstacle! So each ToolBank has a single agenda: to ensure quick and reliable access to large volumes of high quality tools - and a supporting agenda to grow the tool inventory so that charities can increase their impact through an expanding variety of equipment. The Atlanta ToolBank, now in its 20th year, is nearing half a million dollars worth of equipment, and is equipping nearly 50,000 volunteers every year. Many organizations experience an organic buildup of tools, as the impact of their programming grows. Tool abundance typically leads to tool lending. Discrete growth in tool lending cannot be solved by discrete investment - it requires significant capital infusion to really formalize the lending process. It's typically at that point where organizations will examine the practice of tool lending very closely to decide if it is really within their mission, or if it's actually a diversion from their core competencies. Most discover that, while they do in fact need a critical cache of equipment, they would much rather focus their energy (and funds) on their mission and let someone else handle the expenses of tool maintenance, repair, and storage - and the headache of chasing down unreturned tools, like you mentioned. That's exactly what a ToolBank does - that's all a ToolBank does. To be up front, the ToolBank is not an 'open source' project. We have worked diligently to develop what we believe is the best available model for tool lending, and we want to make sure that each ToolBank strengthens our national reputation for accountability and excellence. We have also spent a great deal of time developing a fair and collaborative implementation strategy, built on the firm foundation of local leadership. (To give you some idea of our commitment to collaboration, ToolBank USA is the first investor toward a new ToolBank, providing $25k in startup capital and strategic introductions to our corporate investors who donate the bulk of the tools in inventory - news of such a donation in Baltimore is likely to break next week<http://twitter.com/#!/toolbankusa> - stay tuned) I would very much enjoy the opportunity to talk about the implementation of a ToolBank in Seattle (and other cities, not knowing the origin of other recipients of this email) and explore what's possible. I would also be glad to connect you with our volunteer leadership teams in our other ToolBank cities, "to check our references". And lastly, if you have occasion to come to Atlanta, please call me for a personal tour of the Atlanta ToolBank. (The next best thing is this short video<http://www.toolbank.org/ToolBank101/Watchthis.aspx>) And as a heads-up, I'll be on vacation from tomorrow until July 20 with no access to email or voicemail. I look forward to picking this conversation back up upon my return, perhaps via a phone call at your convenience. Thank you! Very respectfully yours, Mark PS - Richard Winkler, I apologize for not responding to your email earlier in the week - please let me know if you have any questions that are not answered by this email. Mark Brodbeck ToolBank USA www.toolbank.org<http://www.toolbank.org> From: Bryan, Julie [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, July 08, 2011 3:15 PM To: Mark Brodbeck Cc: Pernitz, Sandy; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Tool bank questions HI Mark, I work with the City of Seattle's P-patch Community Gardening Program. We have a tool bank available to gardeners for our 80+ gardens across the city. Currently, gardeners can go, pick-up and return tools to a central location. They have to work through P-Patch Staff to make sure tools needed are available and checked out and in through our excel spread sheet. However, our system is not efficient nor is it effective. Tools do not get checked back in, we have no system to track broken tools, tool loss, not tools in need of repairs. Most of our tools are hand tools, but we also have gas trimmers and lawn movers. In the next two years, we hope to have a web based sytem, and now seems like a good time to look at how others are organizing tool banks. We We are looking to learn how others manage their tool banks. I am not quite sure how to continue this conversation, but hope we can find a way to learn fromm your experience, and that of others. Julie Julie Bryan Garden Coordinator P-Patch Community Gardening Program | Seattle Department of Neighborhoods ph 206 684 0540 | cell 206 257 8257 | fax 206 233 8561 http://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/ Public Disclosure/Disclaimer Statement: Consistent with the Public Records Act, Chapter 42.56 RCW, all records within the possession of the City may be subject to a public disclosure request and may be distributed or copied. 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